


A Whole New Level of Weird

by PoeticallyIrritating



Series: Rory's Asshole Girlfriends [1]
Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/F, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 16:46:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3576672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoeticallyIrritating/pseuds/PoeticallyIrritating
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Jess returns (again), Paris and Rory are girlfriends, and Rory has a lot of frantic telephone conversations. Featuring trans girl Jess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Whole New Level of Weird

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to tumblr user lonelyazlez for reading this over for me!
> 
> Warnings: brief accidental misgendering.

When Jess comes back again, Rory can’t tell, at first, what’s different. Short hair, leather jacket, same old, same old. But when she gets closer she sees lipstick, and squints.

“What’s up with this?” she asks, gesturing to her own lips. She half expects Jess to burst out laughing, tell her it’s for a play or a performance art piece or something; she’s poised to laugh in response. Instead, Jess shrugs a little awkwardly and says, “I’ve been figuring some things out.”

It’s easy to switch to _she._ Jess is the same old Jess in a lot of ways. She’s got another book that she tells Rory about almost sheepishly, and she still has the same mess of hair, even if she uses less grease. She has a pill bottle in her pocket now, little blue tablets that she doesn’t seem to mind Rory seeing her take, and she’s softer now around the edges; her hip bumps against Rory’s while they browse a bookstore together and she’s surprised at the difference a few months of hormones will make.

She invites Jess over for dinner.

“Just the two of us?” Jess asks, and she winks with all the old Jess bravado.

Rory shuffles her feet. “Um,” she says. “No, uh, me and—uh—Paris. My…girlfriend.” It’s still hard to make the word come out, sometimes. Boyfriend was weird enough to get used to saying, and that was totally normal! Socially acceptable! _Girlfriend_ is on a whole new level of weird, and it’s just…yeah. _Weird._

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, uh.” She shifts again, the carpet of the bookstore making soft sounds under her shoes. “I mean, I don’t know, it’s not like I’d never thought about it, or anything, but mostly it was completely out of the blue, and—”

“Hey,” says Jess. “Relax.”

“Right. Okay. Relaxing now. Realizing you’re probably not a giant homophobe.”

“Probably not,” says Jess, smirking.

* * *

Paris cooks. Paris _shouldn’t_ cook, which Rory has known since college but which is kind of fun to watch Jess discover as she crunches down on a bite of undercooked spaghetti and tries very hard to nod and smile. There’s still something weird about being, well, domestic with Paris. She’s lived with Paris since, like, forever, basically, but living with Paris and _living with_ Paris are two different things. There’s the same-bed situation, obviously, which is an adventure in itself—though Rory experienced the full extent of Paris’ sleep-talking capabilities in the past, the kicking is a new experience. But it’s more than the same-bed thing. It’s making dinner together, and telling Paris when she’s going to be home late, and how when she’s ranting about her day and Paris is ranting about _her_ day, they always end up holding hands at the end of it. It’s the way she can touch Paris, just casually, and have it be comfortable and right and not weird, because even if a lot of things about this are weird, being with Paris has never _felt_ weird. Not in a bad way, anyway. Things with Paris are definitely good-weird.

Now they’re sitting together in Rory and Paris’ apartment, the three of them, and Paris is bustling around the kitchen as if she knows what she’s doing, and Jess is telling them how a mainstream publisher might want to pick up her book, and it’s all, well, kind of really nice.

“Thanks for dinner, Paris,” says Jess, as sincerely as she can manage, and Rory stifles a snort with her hand.

After dinner, Paris and Rory sit on the couch in the living room and talk. This is part of Paris’ Relationship Plan, which she has made a chart for, and which includes one hour a day for “discussion and/or conflict resolution.” Unofficially, Paris has decided that they take turns starting the conversation. Rory has forgotten that it’s her turn, so the session begins with Paris staring intently into her eyes for thirty seconds.

“So,” says Rory finally. “My ex…came to dinner. Is that weird, for you?”

“Why should it be weird? You dated in high school.”

“Yeah, but, uh…I mean, I almost. Uh.” She realizes that she probably should have told Paris this sooner. “I almost cheated on Logan with him—her. When she was a he, but…of course I guess she never was, but, you know. When I _thought_ she was a he.”

“I get it, Rory, pronouns are confusing,” Paris says, looking amused at Rory’s nerves. “You _almost_ cheated on Logan?”

“Yeah, but, I mean, he cheated first—sort of—I don’t know, I didn’t go through with it but the point is I’ve seen Jess, you know, _seen_ her, more recently than high school.”

“Rory,” says Paris. “This bourgeois idea of jealousy? I’ve moved beyond it.”

“Paris, you know our entire existence is kind of bourgeois, right?” Before Paris can open her mouth to protest, likely to explain that someone with seventy billion generations at Harvard is way above being called _bourgeois,_ she interrupts. “What have you moved beyond, exactly?

“Being jealous! Monogamy is a social construct designed to prevent men from running out on their children—or to force women into their place in the patriarchy, depending on your point of view—so what’s the use in getting invested in it?”

“Uh,” says Rory. She’s not sure if she should be offended or not. “So you’re not…getting invested.”

“In monogamy, Rory, not in…you.” Her face softens a little as she says it. “I _live_ with you, and while I realize that’s not a complete guarantee, I do think it signifies a certain level of commitment!”

“Commitment,” says Rory. “But not—so, what, you would just…go out and date someone else?”

“Only if you were comfortable with it,” says Paris, shrugging.

“I don’t know if I _am_ comfortable with it!” says Rory, and she can feel herself getting kind of shrill in, like, probably the kind of way that is going to ruin her reputation as a cool and collected girlfriend for the next month. “I—Paris, what are we talking about here?”

“Polyamory,” says Paris, as if this should have been obvious. “Consensual non-monogamy. Come on, Rory, get with the times! Haven’t you heard of _The Ethical Slut?_ An absolute travesty to the art of writing, of course, and do they really think polyamory would have prevented the Holocaust? But it’s brought the idea into the mainstream, I’ll give it that.”

“I—” Rory closes her eyes tight and then opens them again, as if this Paris will disappear and the Paris of five minutes ago, a different, slightly less bizarre Paris, will reappear in her place. She doesn’t. “Paris, I don’t want to be an ethical slut! Or any kind of slut, not that—you know, no judgment and everything, but I’ve always been kind of a—you know. A relationship girl.”

“You can have more than one relationship,” says Paris, as if this is the most reasonable thing in the world. “All I’m saying is that if you wanted to go out on a date with Jess, I wouldn’t be opposed.”

“Paris, I’m not dating Jess! Today was the first time I’d seen her in almost four years, I’m not just going to go on a date with her…and besides, I’m with you, I don’t—” She realizes that the content of their conversation has rendered that particular point irrelevant, and trails off.

“Not necessarily immediately,” says Paris. “But if you ever want to date Jess, I’m just letting you know that I’m okay with it.” She smirks a little, in the knowing kind of way that Rory hates. “I’m just saying, it seems like there’s still a spark.”

“There’s not a spark!” Rory says, feeling like she’s probably fighting a losing battle. “No spark. Absolutely zero sparkage.”

“If you say so,” Paris singsongs.

“I do!” says Rory. It feels like overkill, but also: what is she supposed to _say?_

* * *

In the morning, she calls her mom.

“Wow,” says Lorelai. And again: “Wow.” Then: “Didn’t you already try this with Logan, kid? That didn’t work out too well for you.”

“That was—different.” She doesn’t know why she’s defending this, because this is _ridiculous,_ and her mom is probably right. But she presses on, stubbornly: “I didn’t know where I _was_ with Logan. We weren’t together then. Paris and I are…together. Super together! And Logan got jealous of _me_ , too. Paris says she’s…evolved, or something.”

“Paris is from the future? Can she get me a really cheap one of those fancy new iPhones?”

“You don’t know how to use the one you have; I don’t think a new, more confusing one is going to do the trick.”

“Maybe there are more user-friendly iPhones in the future,” says Lorelai. “Ones with really big buttons and a voice-control system that doesn’t get mad at you if you insult it.” She pauses. “What were we talking about?”

“Paris. Jess. Weird and confusing lack of conflict?”

“Well, hon, that’s good, right?”

“Yes, but—what about all the other stuff? The—dating-more-than-one-person stuff. Do you think that really sounds like me?”

“I don’t know, Rory. We know you’re not a casual-dating kind of girl. But the rest might be something you have to figure out on your own.”

“So you think I should? Figure it out, I mean.”

“I think you should…think about it.”

“Great,” says Rory. “Can’t you just tell me what to do?”

“Are you five again?”

“Not the last time I checked.”

“Then sorry, kid, this one’s on you.”

Rory sighs. “Being an adult sucks,” she says.

“Don’t I know it,” says her mom. Then: “What about Jess? Do you still have feelings for her?”

“I—” Rory kicks the leg of the kitchen table. _Thud, thud, thud._ “I don’t know? I guess—maybe. I mean, it’s been so long, but—maybe.”

“Then think about it.”

“No other sage advice?”

“Nada. Sorry, kid. While my area of expertise is vast and storied, containing—as you know—an impressive knowledge of all things involving shoes and boys, dating two girls at once is not my area.”

“Right.”

There’s a pause. “That Paris,” says Lorelai. “She’s an odd one, isn’t she?”

“Yeah,” says Rory, and she kind of hopes her mom can’t hear any sign of the nearly-lovesick smile that creeps onto her face.

* * *

She calls Paris at work in the evening, after she gets home from a very jittery day at work that had nothing at all to do with half a dozen impending deadlines and overly defensive interviewees. “I’m going to ask Jess out,” she says, interrupting Paris’ greeting.

Paris makes a _“heh”_ noise that makes her sound like a movie villain. A really happy movie villain.

“I can hear your smugness over the phone,” Rory says, “so stop it. And I don’t even know if this is my—thing, okay! I don’t know if this is something I can do. So don’t get your hopes up, missy.”

“Fine,” says Paris. “But take her somewhere nice.”

“Jess doesn’t really do ‘nice,’” says Rory.

“Well then take her somewhere crappy, I guess. The point is, show her a good time. And don’t be afraid to get handsy.”

“Paris!”

“I’m just saying, it’s been a long time, you two have missed each other…go to town.”

 _“Paris!_ ” Rory yelps, louder this time. “Goodbye!” And she hangs up. Then she paces one circuit around the living room, plants herself in one spot, and calls Jess. (And tries to ignore her heart pounding in her throat.)

“Hey,” comes the unfamiliar-familiar voice.

“Hey. Jess. It’s, uh, it’s me.”

“Yeah, Rory, I saw. Caller ID, it’s been around a while.”

“Right. Um…”

“You gonna say something?”

“Yeah,” says Rory. She’s biting her lip. “I—was wondering—if you wanted to have dinner again!”

“Sure,” says Jess.

Rory’s relief swells and fades in the space of an instant, when she realizes that, well, she hasn’t actually _asked._ “But,” she says. “I mean—not—with Paris.”

“Rory,” says Jess. Rory can hear something wary in her voice, and she remembers that she used Jess once before, or tried to, and that was—well, that sucked.

“No, I don’t mean—not like—not like before,” she finishes. “I mean—look, Paris and I, we had this talk, okay? And I was afraid that she was going to be jealous, you know, about you coming over! And she said—well, you know, Paris gets these weird…ideas—and I don’t really know where I’m going with this except that I want to ask you out for dinner. And not in a cheating way. Or a fake-cheating way. Just a, like, I want to go on a date with you and my girlfriend is weirdly cool with it…kind of way.”

There’s silence on the other end. “Wow,” says Jess finally. Another pause, and then: “Friday night?”


End file.
